It is another busy morning for the headteacher at a secondary school in North London.

Her day starts with stepping in to take the register for a Year 10 history class, whose teacher is running late to school en route from a doctor’s appointment.

Next, the headteacher makes her way to her office to pull up a list of students on free school meals, ready for her budget meeting with the school business manager.

As she is doing so, a call comes through about Year 7 progress reports - something that the head of lower school will surely know the answer to. The headteacher quickly checks his timetable to find out if he is teaching or if he’s free for a quick chat.

All these tasks have something in common: they require the head to use the school’s management information system.

Since the advent of Cloud computing, these systems have changed a lot. Gone are the days of slow admin networks, disruptions to service and clunky user interfaces. Management information systems (MIS) are now easier to use and maintain, with less training required. They cost less to access and they are more readily adaptable for remote-hosted solutions.

Today’s MIS are more than just admin tools or tools for sending data returns; they are essential tools for school improvement, collaboration and communication. Used well, they can reduce a school’s overall costs and improve efficiency and effectiveness.

At least, that should be the case.

In practice, many schools and multi-academy trusts in England still struggle to use MIS that simply don’t work well for them. Why is this? There are several reasons that leaders tend to give for not wanting to change.

All MIS are the same

Put simply, they are not. The user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) vary enormously between systems. Some products are reminiscent of the old days of working in DOS, compared with the new modern aesthetic look of other MIS, with their time-saving global search tools, more intuitive reporting dashboards and analytics, and drill-down functionality throughout.

My local authority only supports one MIS

Again, not true. The majority of local authority support services for MIS have either seen significant reductions or have been completely replaced by companies providing outsourced services. There is an appetite among these companies to support all systems, not just perpetual legacy contracts.

Our MAT has already chosen all schools’ MIS

MATs are not local authorities. A MAT is one legal entity, with one board of directors and one set of policies. MATs have different requirements to local authorities. Oasis, Ark and the Harris Federation have all overcome the issue of security and scalability of MAT-wide reporting through moving MIS.

Changing MIS would cost too much

Harris Federation recently reported that it had made around £2.8 million in savings since moving MIS. That works out as £20,000 per school. New functionality (including primary trackers) found within some MIS also reduce the need for myriad third-party software.

Add to that the savings created by moving to the cloud and the improved integrity of the data collection process, and the real question should be: can you afford not to change?

Procurement routes are cumbersome and unhelpful

The Academies Financial Handbook states that you have two options here: find and use a framework or run your own procurement. Cloud-based frameworks can be accessed via the government’s own G-Cloud, which consists of a series of framework agreements with suppliers (from which public sector organisations can buy services without needing to run a full tender or competition procurement process) and an online store that allows public sector bodies to search for services that are covered by the G-Cloud frameworks. Other framework services exist to support schools, too.

Choosing to run your own procurement competition can be beneficial as long as the process is managed with integrity.

Changing would be an added distraction that just isn’t needed at the moment

The benefits of implementing effective MIS are enormous. On top of the cost savings outlined here, there are huge time savings, increased efficiency and improvements in overall effectiveness. These advantages can only be realised by having access to smarter analytics and insights that focus on school improvement and help to facilitate collaboration.

Any change can create uncertainty and cause additional work if it is not planned or implemented properly. Plan it well and you will reap the rewards.

So, that explains why you should think about changing. But what about how to do it?

I think that there are five key steps for school leaders to take here:

• Speak to colleagues and collaborate: what are the lessons learned from those who have already changed MIS? Is there an opportunity to procure with others?
• Call in suppliers: ask them to demonstrate their functionality and answer all of your questions.
• Investigate bolt-ons: check if you are able to bring together the myriad third-party bolt-on products into MIS as an integrated solution.
• Procure responsibly: decide on your procurement route and ensure that the process has integrity and meets requirements. Carry out financial due diligence into MIS companies.
• Involve and invest in your people: plan to communicate with and develop your people through regular updates and training opportunities. The success of any change programme depends on the quality of the people implementing it.

We are living through a time of change. It might feel like the very last thing you would want to do right now, as school leader, is to part ways with MIS that, while perhaps not the most efficient, are at least familiar in their inefficiency.

However, I would argue the opposite. The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to re-evaluate the way we do everything at school - to scrutinise and reflect upon processes we have long taken for granted. School leaders are asking themselves: do we really have to do it this way? Could there be a better option out there?

When it comes to your MIS, the answer might just be “yes”.

David Moran is a former CEO of E-ACT multi-academy trust

This article originally appeared in the 7 August 2020 issue under the headline “Why switching to a new MIS isn’t mission impossible”